Russia sent quad bikes to clear a minefield. Ukraine’s drones did the rest.
- The Russian 58th Combined Arms Army is trying to capture Mala Tokmachka in southern Ukraine
- The army has a new vehicle: an all-terrain vehicle fitted with a small mine plow
- As a breaching vehicle, the ATV is better than than nothing—but it has a lot of flaws
The town of Mala Tokmachka anchors Ukrainian defenses along the gray zone in southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Russian forces have been trying and failing to capture the village—for years.
But they're not done trying. And now they've got a new vehicle to help them. An all-terrain vehicle, or quad bike, modified to clear buried mines. The mine-clearing ATV might not work very well, however.
On or just before Tuesday, the Russian 58th Combined Arms Army sent a large assault force toward Mala Tokmachka on 20 motorcycles and seven ATVs. Drones from the Ukrainian 118th Mechanized Brigade blasted the Russians, defeating the attack.
What's most notable about the Tuesday assault is what the retreating Russians left behind: several ATVs with small metal plows fitted to their fronts and anti-drone radio jammers on their backs. The plow is an "improvised mine-sweeper modification," according to analyst Moklasen.
The idea, it seems, is that the modified ATVs could lead an assault column, scraping away mines to protect the trailing ATVs and bikes.
It's not a bad idea, in theory. Drones threaten Russian assault groups from above. Mines scattered by aerial drones, ground robots and human engineers threaten them from below.
Assault breachers
It's not for no reason that, even as it has parked most of its tanks and other heavy armored vehicles, the Russian army in Ukraine still deploys a few of these vehicles as drone-absorbing mine-clearers. These extensively up-armored turtle, porcupine and dandelion tanks wear metal shells and protruding metal bars to protect them from drones, as well as front-mounted plows or rollers to clear mines.
Functioning as breaching vehicles rather than traditional tanks, these modified vehicles clear paths for assault groups. But even with all their piled-on protections, which usually include radio jammers, the breachers often succumb to the drones and mines they're designed to clear.
An ATV breaching vehicle is even more vulnerable. Where it's possible to heap tons of add-on armor onto a tank that might weight 40 tons, it's all but impossible to add much protection to a one-ton ATV. So a mine-clearing ATV is exposed to aerial attack, especially aerial attack by fiber-optic or A.I.-assisted drones that can't be jammed.
Moreover, an ATV lacks the weight and power to dig large buried mines from soft earth, the way a purpose-built breaching vehicle can do. An ATV with a mine plow is restricted to roads, and the only mines it can safely clear are the lighter models that rest on the surface.
A new capability for clearing surface mines on paved roads isn't nothing, however. A Russian assault group would surely prefer having some ability to clear certain mines if the alternative is going on the attack with no ability to clear any mines.
That small tweak to the 58th Combined Arms Army's order of battle didn't help the army crack Mala Tokmachka on Tuesday. But that's understandable given how unforgiving the surrounding terrain is for an attacker.
Mapper Vitaly summed it up. "Two rivers, exposed bridge, open fields and no villages nearby." Encirclement would be extremely difficult so it's possible the only way into Mala Tokmachka for the Russians is to sneak in from the south, "hoping the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] won't notice."
They did notice on Tuesday. And stopped the 58th CAA and its new ATV mine-clearers cold.
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